Justice - And Outrage

I don't know if you've been following the problems in Ferguson, MO, where 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot dead, by a police officer, and the rioting that has resulted from that incident.  We don't know all the circumstances and we don't know the facts (was there a struggle for the gun?), and the justice system will sort all that out.  It does no good to speculate at this point.

However, Charles C.W. Cooke at National Review  penned a couple of good paragraphs this morning, worthy of consideration.

“Justice,” Benjamin Franklin suggested, “will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” There is no virtue to playing judge, jury, and executioner before the facts are known. Nor is there anything to be achieved by turning a dispassionate process into a partisan game. No doubt, as in the cases of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, we will witness sects forming where they do not belong. Conservatives should resist indulging in this at all costs. But they should also resist appearing uninterested. By asking those who wish to talk about authority what they think about civil society instead, many among us are giving off the impression that there is no circumstance in which Franklin’s outrage is going to be forthcoming — however clear-cut the guilt might be. The question of who guards the guardians pertains now as keenly as it ever has. The Right’s answer should be “we do” — and we’re happy to hang them high if we know that they have transgressed.

I concur.  As they say, go read the whole thing.